


Christmas Eve 2006

by Sheffield



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:49:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look what I just found!  I sent this out with the Sentinel Angst List holiday card exchange in 2006.  I miss you guys.  It's Christmas fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Eve 2006

T'was the night before Christmas… 

One minute he was asleep, and the next he was walking down the stairs, gun in hand. Someone was in his house. What the…

"Sandburg, you don't live here any more," he said dryly.

Sandburg beamed at him and carried on searching the kitchen cabinets.  
"Jim! Come on! It's Christmas Eve, and I don't have any brandy."  
"Sandburg, it's four in the bleeding *morning* and you don't *live* here any more!"  
"I have butter, and icing sugar, but it won't be brandy butter without brandy, and you can't have mince pies without brandy butter, I mean – woah!"  
"Sandburg! It's FOUR in the MORNING. And you just BROKE IN. To the house of an ARMED AND CRANKY COP!!!"

Sandburg seemed to realise something was wrong.

"Why are you talking in block capitals?" he asked solicitously. "Here. Have a mince pie instead." He waved a pastry – smelling unarguably of dried fruit and cherries and some kind of booze and not of minced meat at all – in Jim's general direction.

"You don't break in to a cop's house. You don't disturb a cop while he is sleeping. You don't walk into their house and start raiding their kitchen cupboards for booze in the middle of the night because of the VERY REAL DANGER that they will ACCIDENTALLY SHOOT YOUR ASS!!"

Sandburg wasn't usually so slow at grasping simple arguments.   
"Sandburg!!! I could have SHOT you!"  
"Jim! Come on! You're a Sentinel. You heard it was me – even asleep, your senses knew straight away that it was only your Guide in your territory. You smelled me before you saw me, you heard me before you smelled me, you never thought it was a burglar, not even for a minute."  
Jim carried on giving him the Ellison Glare of Death and, as usual, Sandburg shrugged it right off again. He wasn't just slow, he was positively impervious.  
"Look at yourself. You're wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Is that what you were sleeping in? No it is not. Would you have stopped to get dressed if you were being burgled? I don't think so! And look at your gun. Pull the trigger. Go on. A, it's stuck in the waistband of your jeans, not even pretending to point at your "burglar", B, the safety is still on, and C, I'll bet you ten dollars it isn't even loaded." He returned to searching Jim's cupboards. "Shoot me!" he chuckled to himself.

Jim sighed, sat down, and gave in gracefully. "Brandy's behind the beans, top shelf," he allowed. Sandburg pulled the bottle down and then snorted. "Tell me you haven't started alphabetizing your cupboards now, too, man?"

"Sandburg… it's four in the morning on Christmas Eve. And you really don't live here any more. So why the hell are you here burglarising my brandy?"  
"You gave me a spare key for emergencies, remember?"  
"For emergencies, I remember. What part of drinking my brandy counts as an emergency these days, Chief?"  
"Drinking it? Nah, I need it for the brandy butter. Look, Jim, if it's four in the morning then technically it's Christmas Day, not Christmas Eve, so we can actually eat the mince pies, so why don't I just show you?"

He reached into the Tupperware box on the counter and produced more of the little pastries. He put them on a baking sheet and into the oven.

"They're already cooked, obviously, but they're a whole lot better if you eat them hot, so we'll just warm them through while I make the brandy butter, right?"

He was already assembling butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence on the counter. He popped the stick of butter into a bowl and nuked it for a couple of seconds to bring it up to room temperature and then started measuring out the same quantity of icing sugar. One tiny drop of vanilla essence later and he started carefully forking the icing sugar into the butter, switching to an electric beater when it wasn't going to turn into a comedy "cover everyone with sugar" routine. And then… brandy. About half a cup of brandy beaten into the mixture, until he was left with a bowl of pale butter smelling of…

Jim was slavering like Pavlov's dogs by this time, and the smell of fruit and pastry coming from the oven was amazing.

Sandburg split the pastries between four bowls, handed Jim a spoon, and then put a knob of the brandy butter onto each little pie. Jim took a mouthful of crisp pastry, warm fruit, and melted brandy butter and heard himself make a sound that was almost exactly like… rowwwwwwwwwwwwwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

"Just a minute, though," he objected, "who gets the other two?"  
"Well one is for my mom," Sandburg said, stating the obvious. "I mean, I cook and all, but I don't bake mince pies, come on! She arrived from London this morning and brought them with her, and we haven't had mince pies and brandy butter since I was eight and we lived for six months in Glastonbury."  
"Your mom?"  
"She's hiding in the bathroom till she's sure you aren't going to shoot me. You can come out now!"  
"Hi Jim!"

Yet still, he had to ask.

"And the other?"  
"Why, Jim," Naomi said seriously, "it's Christmas! They're for Father Christmas, of course! Now then… do you have a carrot handy for the reindeer?"

 

Sheffield, Chistmas 2006


End file.
